Stress and Family

When I started working on this project, I needed a name for this project’s folder on my computer. In the beginning, it was Depression — since it’s based on a Depression era picture. As I worked on the mother, I began to see it has a reflection of the stress of mothers — so I changed the name of the folder to Stress Project — knowing that that wouldn’t be it’s final name. And as I get closer to Christmas and I see the insanity that is family that comes out during the holidays — this has becomes a difficult project for me to work on — much less talk about.

But — I should share my progress from last week. I had finished the mother and her son & began work on the daughter that is on the mother’s other side. This shows her neck, arm, and fingers curled up.

And her hair. I think it turned out well.

I snuggled her up to her mom. You may noticed that I’ve added some darker tones to the son’s hair. I also changed the fabric just under the mom’s hand — they were previously shirt fabrics but they were too close in tone to her skin so I just changed them to coat fabrics so you could see the back of her hand clearer.

The right hand side of the daughter is an extension that I’m creating because the photograph has something obscuring the view here (I think it’s a pole). I decided to lighten the lower shadow.

I like it better here. I also did the babies face. I don’t like how her face comes together but have decided that I’ll work on it after I’ve made her blanket. I’ll probably have the blanket wrap over the top of her head.

The blanket will extend across the bottom of the piece.

I think that I’ll continue as much as I can in the studio to try to black out the insanity of the holidays. It gives me a peace that’s hard to explain.